


Hymn

by horse



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: M/M, Spoilers, more plot than porn sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-14 04:28:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20186266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/horse/pseuds/horse
Summary: Picking up the pieces, one by one, one by one.





	Hymn

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you in advance for reading. Apologies for errors and anything out of character - just really love these two wooops

“-And the words of our faith, being spoken in earnest and with ease; and the altitude of our ambitions, never bringing us to burning, but to sailing, at peace, under Her guiding light.” _Amen._

A distant memory from a faraway palace, which still shone with resplendent majesty in the periphery of his mind. The words like a gentle hum. He only needed to hear the sound to remember. Did not need to focus on the specifics syllables. No, he thought, staring at rubble as people made noises around him that he could not parse. One of them was louder even when it was soft, and it sounded like voice of every priest, of every choir member he had ever known. It sounded ethereal and out of place. He didn’t want to think about it too much, didn’t want to think about anything too much, except for the shining palace.

\---

Beside the wounded lion, there lay a sleeping deer. His hide was unprotected and vulnerable in the dappling afternoon sun - it quivered as the beast slept on, exposed and quite unphased.

The thought to lash out became an almost unignorable impulse. Parts of him tensed while instincts confused each other into dormancy. In the end, he remained as cold and still as marble.

In the end, the earth swept upwards and everything rode with the motion, coerced in that gentle and yet compelling way. There was no time for the delusion of choice. Everything moved, and to move with it was not a necessity, but a compulsion. He understood every word Edelgard had spoken heretofore with such violent depth that it made his teeth grind together with an emotion he could not yet name.

“Dimitri.”

Claude had a hand on his shoulder - he hadn’t even noticed. His eye locked on the glove lost in royal blue fabric.

“You’re going to shatter your teeth if you clench your jaw tighter than that. I’m sure you’d still have a charming smile regardless, but maybe we can avoid having to consider that prospect, for now?”

“Do you ever stop spouting absolute nonsense.”

Claude was quiet for a beat. Understandable. Dimitri hadn’t spoken more than two words for… who knew how long… what month was it? He realised he had no idea.

“No.” The archer said, a smirk clear in his tone even if it was too cowardly to grace those lips. “It’s all a part of my endless scheming. Senseless chatter can be as sharp as any sword, you know, despite your embittered opinion. Which I won’t hold against you, by the way.”

He didn’t reply. Claude was visibly struck down by this, evident in the fall of shoulders and the upward twitch of brows. He could feel vibrant eyes on him, making his throat dry and his chest burn. But he just didn’t know how to… continue. How to persist. In conversation, in action… in life. Everything had become as complicated as weaving with a four-shaft loom. Threads like the lives of his loved ones, tangled and mixed, starting and never ending; or ending, seemingly, without a start.

“Please don’t crawl back inside your head so fast.” Claude’s voice was softer, closer. His hand hadn’t moved, and it was starting to burn Dimitri’s skin even through his armour. Was he simply angry that Claude was prodding him so? Or was he so deeply disgusted with himself, that he could not bear the thought of receiving any form of kindness?

“I’m only…” Dimitri breathed in, trying desperately to not fall into the chasm just behind his heels. “I must hold myself accountable… You and the professor - everyone - keep repeating to me that I am not a monster.” He held up a hand, seeing Claude jerk forward as a means to interject, no doubt with reassurance. “I must ask myself if you even know what it is I have done. The magnitude with which I have not only disgraced myself… but my entire family. This entire kingdom.” 

“You’re just repeating _that_ to _us_. So, if you think about it-”

Dimitri made an annoyed sound, rising to his feet. Claude rose with him, and followed when he made to leave the altar, moving towards the cathedral exit.

“I understand what you’re saying, Dimitri. We haven’t… _forgotten_ what’s happened. But we also haven’t forgotten the person you were five years ago. Where do you think half of us would be without you, by the way? Where do you think Dedue-”

Dimitri stopped abruptly, prompting Claude to smash into the side of him and wind himself enough to shut up for a second. The innocence of the moment, mixed with the swirl of emotion that came with the mention of his beloved friend, kept Dimitri’s tongue swollen and still in his mouth. He stared stupidly at Claude, attempting to look more furious and less pained, but perhaps only managing to appear exhausted. The von Riegan stared back, jaw tight, eyes still sure. Serene. Steady.

“I’m going to my room.” He said at long last. “If you would like to… walk with me.” Embarrassed. That’s what he felt. Embarrassed, lonely, and yearning with perilous misery for the way things used to be.

“I’m assuming there are conditions for keeping company.” 

“Don’t mention Dedue.”

Claude stared at the back of Dimitri’s head, watching long blonde hair sway with the motion of his sauntering. _You act like he’s dead_, he thought to himself, but smartly said nothing, not wanting to let the moment slip through his grip like it had so many times before.

\---

One may imagine with that concession, there was at least a spattering of dialogue between the two, where they could revisit their old selves for that handful of moments. That the halls grew warmer in such a way it goaded them further into nostalgia, and when the dying light of the afternoon sun met them on the last stretch of their walk, it met, too, the gentle tug of smiles.

But they had walked in silence all the way.

The rhythm was lost, wiggling as easily through Claude’s gloved fingers as a frantic animal. Even as they ascended steps, Dimitri was keen to maintain the quiet. In a way... it was fine. Claude was probably glad that for the first time in weeks, Dimitri hadn’t almost immediately found a way to dismiss him or himself from view. There was no protest, now, and that was unlike the Alliance leader in any setting… perhaps he had nothing to say, for once.

When the former prince turned, Claude reached out to grab his forearm, catching that steely gaze, as if to say: ‘_Please don’t send me away just yet._’

“I miss you.” Was what he said instead, and it made something move inside Dimitri’s chest with jagged abruptness. Lips parted to speak, only to clamp shut seconds later. His eye was glued, again, to the gloved hand on him… he wished Claude would stop wantonly touching him like they were still anything close to teenagers.

Eventually, Dimitri took the hand, and clearly the other thought he meant to pry it off and escape - there was genuine surprise in Claude’s expression when he, instead, led him inside his quarters.

There was no rush, no frantic romance. Dimitri closed the door behind them with an odd gentleness, then turned back to his impromptu guest, watching the archer survey the room - no doubt noting what had changed and what hadn’t, as a means to assess his host’s faculties.

“I miss…” Dimitri said to the door, having turned again, clutched by apprehension, shoulders hunched, mouth dry. You? Everyone? Everything? What was right to say? What was he allowed to say? “I-” _Thunk_.

“Yeah, I know.” Came a honeyed voice from the center of the room, muffled; Claude must have still been turned around. “Can’t believe you finally let yourself say that word.” The voice was getting closer. It surrounded him in an embrace, made his knees want to buckle under the weight of remembering to stay guilty, to keep punishing himself. After everything, he could not allow himself to fall into all these open - albeit ignorant - arms, but he _so_ wanted to… with _all_ his heart… “You know, back before all this - ahhh, maybe I shouldn’t tell you right now.”

Dimitri was stuck, forehead to wood, anxiety thrumming in place of blood in his veins, keeping his mouth still and his tongue flat against the roof of his mouth before he finally ground out a response. 

“Tell me whenever you please, then.” He hoped he wouldn’t have to repeat himself. Luckily, it seemed that present company was close enough to catch the sorry hum.

“You’re sounding like yourself again… that’s good.” There was amusement hidden in the words, but Claude was treading carefully, and Dimitri could tell. “That’s the thing.” The sound of boots approaching stopped, the sound of leather bending and leaning as weight shifted. “I never got the chance to tell you what I _really_ thought about you, all those years ago.”

He couldn’t take any more disappointment. Knowing how Edelgard saw him now, and might have seen him for such a long time, had felt like being burnt alive. There was no fate he deserved more than that - being scorched clean off the face of a pristine surface, never having existed at all. Even the good he had done in his youth was but a rushlight, blinking humbly in the face of a hellfire blaze that stretched with every step he took.

“You were way more respectful back then, you know? You could look at me while I confess my deepest, darkest secrets to you.”

Dimitri paused, let the moment hang as he inhaled, swallowed a lifetime of obstinance. This was his friend. This was Claude von Riegan. Of their trio, he was the lone wielder of a _heart_. Edelgard’s had been carved away by merciless hands. Dimitri’s had been shattered to pieces long before he knew how to retrieve them. Claude had somehow survived, throughout all his childhood hardships, more capably than an empress and a future king. What was that king now? _Nothing_. Dimitri turned.

“You would never be so loose with me.” His jaw slid in an effort to mask his infantile need to say something light-hearted, deflecting. “You may know things about me even I don’t. I’d find out on my deathbed, and only if you saw fit.”

How he had missed Claude’s laugh, he realised, as it rang softly. 

“You’re absolutely right - in part, anyway.”

“In part?”

“That’s what I was trying to get at earlier. On your point of being loose with you - I wouldn’t say ‘never’.” Warm hands were on him again. He knew they were warm - they had to be, they always had been. They made the steel of his armour boiling hot.

“Nonsense, again?”

“Mmno.” Claude muttered with a smile, though his expression had dropped to something far more solemn than usual, edges rounding in a haze that was overtaking them both. “It’s really not. How long has it been since Teach brought you back? How many months?”

“I’m not sure-”

“Three. It’s been three months. And in all that time you’ve maintained a cold exterior pretty stubbornly. I’ve been waiting for the right time to tell you everything.”

Dimitri wished he could say he knew what was coming, but per usual, Claude was hard to read. If this was an elaborate prank, some well-thought out plan as part of a higher scheme, he would never be the wiser. But with him so close it was hard to think - hard to consider the sordid and miserable possibilities, none of which included what he might have wanted. He was being tugged in by the fur at his collar, everything tingling, stomach flipping as if he were about to fall off a cliff.

“Please, I… cannot handle fun and games, Claude.”

“While you could use the laugh - pretty badly, might I add, your Kingly-ness - I’m not playing around.” 

Claude never seemed to be hesitant about anything, though Dimitri was certain he applied ample thought and care to each and every action, so calculated was the deer… equal parts frightening and inspiring. That being the case… the momentary stall made him nervous, and in his haste, he leaned in to kiss Claude himself, unable to keep composure when the other was so close, right there… radiating heat... smelling like fresh parchment, like herbs and spice…

They stopped, mouths hanging open slightly, eyes wandering, but neither spoke; Dimitri had expected some quip that never came. Instead they kissed again, this time with less restraint. The walls of uncertainty were half-way broken down, enough that one could surrender to circumstance, and it propelled them both forwards - literally, in fact, as Claude dragged him towards the bed.

It wasn’t long before he was sprawled there, watching Dimitri as he carelessly let armour drop off of himself.

“Woah - hey! You ought to take better care of…” The archer stopped, lip twitching when another _clang_ resounded from discarded gauntlets.

“It’s been through worse.” Dimitri said, not without a hint of amusement, and it made Claude sigh and roll his eyes with a smile. He was getting what he wanted after all, no use in arguing; either way, they both had a stake in urgency, especially with so many matters to attend to… _later_.

In a loose white tunic, underpants, and nothing else, Claude reclined like a cat into the obscene amount of pillows at his back. Dimitri watched him as he climbed over the eider-down duvet, still in trousers, but having forgone his own tunic. A wise choice. Claude’s fingers were on him immediately, hot on his skin while they carried their thorough inspection over muscle and scars. The bowman sighed loudly, lids heavy.

“I’ve imagined this, I’m slightly ashamed to say. Once or twice.”

Dimitri’s hands planted themselves at Claude’s shoulders as he continued to revel in the sight below… how could one not? Claude always had such a beauty to him which grew exponentially with time, even from a distance. It had certainly been a disservice on Dimitri’s part to not have noticed, so entrenched in his agenda, and his darkness, at the time. Claude’s admiration had not been unrequited… but perhaps Dimitri had been too blind to address it when it would have been ‘the right time’.

“Aaand I’ve lost him again. Seriously, Mitya, what do I have to do to keep your attention?” The feeling of fingers slithered up his jaw. _Mitya_. 

“Sorry.” It was barely more than a breath as Dimitri dipped down into the crook of Claude’s neck. “I was just thinking about how attractive you’ve always been.” _And comparatively, how stupid I’ve been_. 

Satisfied enough with that answer, Claude’s hands moved along the sides of his jaw and into his hair, arms wrapping around his neck.

“And how you were too emburdened to notice?”

Dimitri sighed with shame, moving to collarbones, looking for some way to distract Claude from saying anything else that was startlingly incriminating. He leaned slightly on his side to let his left hand wander the wondrous expanse of von Riegan’s figure, following the map so carefully laid by biological instruction - at first over fabric, and then underneath. The tunic bunched as a result, baring more skin to the open air. Nothing short of amazing, Dimitri thought to himself, peeking as he returned to an exposed neck. More exploring was in order.

Dimitri's hand moved lower, and lower still, over a curve and into a dip where two fingers sunk easily into a dampness. He paused, solving some equation in his head as he shifted to stare down at Claude with an unchanging expression. The archer did not have the luxury, _for once_, of keeping composure; his brows had come together, bottom lip sucked in with a hitch of breath at the contact. Dimitri applied experimental pressure, and was rewarded with a small jolt, and a pleased hum, cut short in the cutest way.

“Easy, tiger… haha, lion - how much time did you plan on spending in here?”

“A few hours.” Dimitri responded, feeling silly that the sound of his voice had changed so drastically, that the words in his mouth passed more and more like molasses over his tongue as they continued. He saw Claude swallow thickly. “I mean, I meant… not like that…”

“Too late.” Claude shook his head lazily, grinding against Dimitri’s hand. “That was hot, and I’m gonna pretend you meant it _that_ way.”

Fair enough. 

Surely it was not better judgement that guided his hand into Claude’s underwear with an almost awkward quickness… he’d done this before, right? It seemed like if he ever had, it was too long ago to remember what was right, and good, and impressive. Maybe standards were low… Dimitri could only hope. The way the other arched and writhed with his ministrations was enough for now. He wanted to lose himself in a way that was different from the jarring spiral he had become so used to; he wanted so badly to make Claude happy, to only think about making Claude happy. If there was one person who deserved as much, it was Claude von Riegan.

The very same who clutched his wrist as he thrusted in a deliberate rhythm, letting hips match with shameless hunger that made him want to fuck Claude harder, and faster, and with something else… watching that body move was enough to make him forget even his own name for a minute. Claude could swallow the sound Dimitri was trying to drag out with curved fingers, all he wanted, in fact, but he could not help the sound of his own breath run ragged. There was no rhythm to _that_, completely at the mercy of a surprisingly pleasant ride. 

“_Goddess_...” He moaned, hips and thighs jolting at random intervals as it became more difficult to control himself. Dimitri watched carefully, mesmerised by a mouth hanging open, fluttering lashes… Claude’s heart was beating fast in his chest, which shone with sweat as it began to heave with tell-tale panting. Hips lifted of their own accord - Dimitri was quick to support them as best as he could until he remembered the pillows, pausing to hurriedly stuff one into the space at the small of Claude’s back. The sound of an exasperated sigh made him glance upwards, catching Claude’s expression. Red-cheeked, he all but glared back, anger dulled by a lust so palpable it caught Dimitri by the throat, bade him to come back to reality.

“Mit_ya_!” He was interrupted halfway through the whine when Dimitri’s fingers stopped moving in their lazy, placating way and went back to a pace so relentless, it made Claude’s hips snap back upwards, and his head snap backwards. Dimitri ignored the burning in his wrist as much as he could, but even determination couldn’t drive his hand in the expert way he needed it to. Not that it mattered. With a violent shudder, Claude came hard, the cry of Dimitri’s name muffled by a forearm. Every subsequent exhale for the next handful of seconds were vocalised - shaky ‘ah’s that tapered into pants, and then into a long sigh as the rest of him relaxed and became one with the bedding.

“Sorry… I didn’t even… I went straight to…” That. _That_. He hadn’t even thought about being touched until now. Claude’s power… frightening.

Von Riegan shook his head again, licking his lips, swallowing, readying himself to speak again.

“C’mere.”

Having shifted lower to accommodate what had just transpired, Dimitri slid upwards and fell onto his side so that he could face the other.

“What do you want?” Claude murmured, turning slightly, running a hand through his dampened hair. His breathing had finally adjusted accordingly, but his eyes were still glassy; it was easy to see that he was still struggling to focus. Something about that made Dimitri’s abdomen burn.

“To ice my wrist.” He offered honestly, sheepishly, as he stretched it. Claude laughed at that, in a way that shook his shoulders, and made him smile from his mouth to his eyes. “We should stop here,” he continued when the laughter quieted down into a happy sigh, “we should be getting back to…” Claude’s fingers hit his lips.

“You said a few hours.” Those half-lidded green eyes would surely be the death of him. “Please…” There was a change in tone, not exactly a sad one, but something more sobered. Heavy with emotion. “Not so fast.”

How to argue his position? This was not something deserved… but there was something that caught, making it hard to move - hard to event hink about moving. Dimitri didn’t want to go. He wanted to stop spinning so fast. Every jerk back into the mire where his madness had taken him made his neck ache all the more. Maybe just a moment of reprise. Maybe he could be afforded but a _moment_...

“You have me.”

Claude smiled in a way that looked more admonishing than admiring, but in a way, they were one and the same when it came to the archer.


End file.
